In 2013, the international community rightly expressed its outrage at the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. In its recent report, Amnesty International1 has documented evidence strongly suggesting the repeated use of chemical weapons against civilians, including very young children, in Jebel Marra. Their report indicates that chemical weapons have been used by Sudanese government forces more than 30 times since January 2016 against civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The alleged use of chemical weapons by Sudan directly contravenes the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 to which Sudan is a party. We, the undersigned, as representatives of domestic and international civil society, non-governmental organisations, and the Sudanese
diaspora, call on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to open a formal investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons and other illicit munitions against civilians in Sudan by their own government and to work in concert with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to push for access to verify these findings which can then be responded to via UN channels. Failure to treat these attacks with the same seriousness as those in Syria would be an inappropriate and inconsistent application of UN standards.

For several years, some of the signatories of this letter have been aware of the alleged use ofchemical weapons and other illicit ordnance by Sudanese government forces against civilians. Our attempts to bring these potential breaches of international law to the attention of the relevant authorities were left ignored and uninvestigated. With Amnesty International’s detailed account, now is the moment for the international community to finally shine a light on the Sudanese government’s illegal conduct in Darfur, rather than allowing impunity to continue.

If you would like to respond, please do so to Olivia Warham at Waging Peace.